Technical Field
The present invention relates to a monitoring system and method that monitor entry of an object into the surrounding area of a robot.
Related Art
Robots are widely used such as in automated production facilities. In such automated production facilities, a robot at work is required to be prevented from interfering with an object (e.g., a person). In order to prevent such interference, a fence (also called “safety fence”) has generally been set up outside a movable range of the robot to limit entry of the object into this range (e.g., see JP-A-2005-081445).
However, when a worker of the facility, for example, has to come close to the robot by necessity, the worker has to take complicated and time-consuming actions, such as unlocking and opening a door provided in the fence for entry into a region enclosed by the fence, and closing and locking the door after the entry. Therefore, provision of the fence has raised a problem of impairing workability.